It is a cold, clear December night. As the number 59 bus lumbers up past the allotments near the mental hospital, the driver is surprised to see a passenger that he knows did not get on the bus. Before he can react to this discovery, the stranger puts a white tube to his mouth and emits a cloud of smoke that engulfs everybody aboard the bus.

Later, PC Voskins is reflecting on the shooting star that he saw earlier and wondering if all shooting stars have bright orange tails. As he crosses the allotments he finds a dead fox and is aware of the smell of burning. He mentions this when he radios in his midnight report. The sergeant says that he will send out someone to collect the fox but when they arrive they find Voskins stumbling about, his memory gone.

Liz Shaw takes a taxi out to the allotments. As they drive through the dark streets they are flagged down by a strange looking man. The driver winds down the windows and Liz sees that the man has a face that looks to be moulded of liquid flesh. He blows clouds of smoke into the car. When the taxi is discovered by a police patrol, neither Liz nor the driver has any memory of who they are. The police also discover the 59 bus where the same tale is true of driver and passengers.

Back at the police station the police doctor surmises that something landed at the allotments and killed the fox. He thinks that the scorch marks may be extra-terrestrial. The sergeant is sceptical but both of them are aware that another Doctor was at the bus stop saying that the investigation should be handled by UNIT.

By dawn the victims of memory loss have been taken to the local mental hospital. Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart is annoyed that none of his men can trace the Doctor but is relieved to see that the patients are showing no ill-effects other than amnesia. He is immediately cheered when he hears that Voskins' last report mentioned an old yellow car beside the hospital wall. He rushes out to find the Doctor.

The Doctor is in a garrulous mood and chewing on a turnip. He says that his presence there was coincidental: his car broke down and he called Liz out to help him. He then goes on to say that the events of that night might be linked to a recent Soviet space mission that returned to Earth with, apparently, an extra cosmonaut on board. The four regulation crew were rushed into isolation immediately and the Doctor speculates that pseudo-humans have been trying to steal the minds of people for the purposes of an alien race. He adds that he spent much of the night repelling the efforts of just such a pseudo-man.

Liz remains blank when the Doctor speaks to her as if she remembers nothing of her life before the incident in the taxi. The Doctor takes her out of the hospital to see if he can jog her memory and they end up by a pile of builder's sand where the taxi came to rest. None of this means anything to her and the Doctor is about to give up when he spots something. What seemed to be a pile of clothes is the shrivelled form of the pseudo-man he fought off the previous night.

He takes Liz and the remains to his laboratory to investigate. After a day working on the thing he steps out for a break. When he returns to the laboratory he is astonished to find the pseudo-man fully revived. It speaks to him with a voice that the Doctor assumes is emanating from a distant space ship or planet. It says that it was attracted to the Doctor's mind the previous night and now it is intent on claiming it. The Doctor realises that his car breaking down at that spot was no coincidence. The creature, now revealed as an Extractor, begins to emit smoke. Realising that his mind is about to be wiped, the Doctor stumbles from the room. Half an hour later he arrives back at the hospital. He tells the Brigadier that the Extractor is trapped in the laboratory and will be dead by morning. He adds that the other victims were not wiped for their knowledge and will recover soon.

Soldiers From Zolta

3rd Doctor, Liz and the Brigadier

On a hot, heavy Sunday evening, the Brigadier and Liz Shaw survey the debris left after a march through London's streets. Unlike the usual protest demonstrations, this one was to celebrate the discovery of Zoltans on Mars by an international expedition to the red planet. Liz speculates that the two dozen Zoltans could be the start of an invasion of the planet.

The Martian expedition had ended in disaster when the landing craft crashed to the surface and disintegrated. The grief over the loss of the five astronauts was replaced by shock when automated television pictures showed the Zoltans, a bipedal race in space suits, sifting through the wreckage in an attempt to help. When the aliens produced one of the astronauts, Adrian Fairley, alive and well, the speculation that the aliens had caused the crash was replaced by a wave of celebration. A second mission returned Fairley and a tape of greeting from the aliens. The only disquieting aspect to the aliens appeared to be that they were all uniformly identical.

Fairley reported that the Zoltans had cured his massive injuries with a machine which, unfortunately, could only care for one of the crew. He said that the Zoltans were a dispassionate and methodical race with no signs of emotion. They seemed amicable. The tape they sent showed their planet to be reddish in colour with two small moons. The Zoltans lived in large buildings in a landscape showing no other animal life. There was no way of distinguishing different genders and the young lived communally. The food they gave to Fairley and the party of American rescue astronauts was tasteless and nutritious.

Watching the film, the Doctor says that he has never encountered the Zoltans before. He and the Brigadier wonder why none of the film shows any Zoltan soldiers which exasperates Liz. She says that a peaceful race would not need soldiers. The other two are also worried that the pro-Zoltan campaign led by Argus Possiter will succeed in bringing the Zoltansd to Earth before the world is ready for them. The trio ride down to Hyde Park where the demonstrators have arrived. Possiter addresses them, accompanied by Fairley, preaching unity. Suddenly he throws his arms wide in terror and pleads to be saved before dropping dead.

His death is followed shortly by that of an American anti-Zoltan lobbyist and then ten Russians (allegedly pro-Zoltasn but really not) in a plane crash. The Doctor points out that the American died in terror and that the pilot of the Russian plane sounded terrified before the crash. He adds that the link between the deaths is Fairley: he was beside Possiter when he died as well as having had dinner with the American shortly before his death. Further, he was in Moscow to see off the Russian delegation from the airport. He adds that this does not mean Fairley was aware of his involvement in the deaths. The point is raised again two days later when Fairley ids discovered dead in his bungalow. The Doctor immediately sets off to investigate. He drives down to Sarunbury and parks in front of the neat little house. A policeman on duty allows the Doctor access to the study where the astronaut died. The Doctor finds a fairly ordinary room, only occupied by a cat. He looks around, ruminating on the fact that Fairley did not die in terror but smiling defiantly. He pays close attention to a map of the world circled in blue.

As he prepares to leave he glances in the mirror. Behind him he sees a monstrous winged creature with startlingly beautiful eyes in a hideous face. He stumbles from the house in horror. Liz and the Brigadier are standing on the pavement watching in astonishment. When the Doctor turns round the creature has gone. He starts to scrable about on the lawn and rises in triumph, holding a tiny insect. He tells the Brigadier that the insect is the Zoltan's weapon. Its sting induces paralysis and terror in its victims. Fortunately, the Doctor's non-human blood made him relatively impervious to the effects. He guesses that the insects were being bred by Fairley who had destroyed (almost) all of them the previous night.

A new expedition to Mars finds that the Zoltans have left without trace. Thinking about the blue circles on the map, the Doctor presumes that they will return.

The Ghouls of Grestonspey

3rd Doctor, Liz and the Brigadier

A UNIT detachment is deployed to a glen in Scotland to investigate a mysterious phenomenon. The Doctor and Liz accompany them on a night patrol. Liz is the first to see a strange glow and as she screams hysterically the Doctor tries to pull her away. Instead, the pair of them are dragged towards a misty shape. At the centre of the mist the Doctor is frozen like a statue. Liz stumbles clear in time to see both the Doctor and the mist disappear. She reports back to the Brigadier. To her dismay, he seems calm about the whole affair, saying that the Doctor will return in his own time with a tale to tell. He takes a party out at dawn to search the area.

The Doctor wakes up in an underground cave. He is inside a cage. Around him are other cages containing people from Earth. The Doctor wonders if they are labelled "Homo Sapiens, Sol 3." He sees one of the cages dragged to the centre of the caver where it is surrounded by grey, misty blobs. The cage is flooded with light and the occupant collapses. When a similar light shines into the Doctor's cage he dodges it. His cage door opens and he is drawn towards the centre of the cave.

Out in the glen, the Brigadier is annoyed when one of his men opens fire on a flying saucer. Another saucer emerges from an opening in the ground.

The Doctor is drawn into a passage where he meets a tall, humanoid figure in silver overalls. He learns from the alien's arrogant outburst that the people are Zeld and they have been refuelling their ship from the nearby nuclear reactor. He is treated like an animal whose superior psychic ability (compared to Earthmen) will amuse the Zeld back home. The Doctor reacts angrily and knocks the Zeld to the floor. The alien produces a ray gun and fires at him, destroying several of the wraith-like Protos.

The Doctor runs down a passage and finds a chamber with a saucer-like ship. as he dashes aboard it raises him through the roof of the cave. He finds himself near Liz and the Brigadier. He tells them that he doesn't know who or what the Zeld are but suggests that the UNIT soldiers shoot them as they emerge from below ground. That should end the menace and the drain on the reactor's power.

Any remaining Zeld will be trapped below forever.

Caught in the Web

3rd Doctor, Liz and the Brigadier

UNIT are guarding Dr Rossi while he examines dust from the latest planetary probe. To ensure maximum security he is being hidden in the desert near Tripoli.

In the laboratory, the Italian doctor demonstrates his discovery by shining an ultra-violet lamp on some dust. The dust shimmers and swirls, transfixing both men until the Brigadier switches off the lamp in alarm. They realise that what they have found could be of enormous benefit, or enormous threat, to mankind. The Brigadier asks Rossi not to continue with his investigation until the Doctor is brought from London to aid him. He glances at the television screen monitoring the slopes of Black Peak outside the laboratory. After he looks away he misses the sight of two camouflaged men murdering the UNIT guards outside.

When the Doctor's plane arrives at the landing strip beneath Black Peak the sun is setting. The Doctor and a UNIT captain stride up to the slopes of the peak and discover the corpses of the guards. Inside, the Brigadier tells them that Dr Rossi has been kidnapped and the space dust stolen. After he has described the reaction of the dust to ultra=violet light the Doctor looks concerned. He says that he knows the planet of its origin and its inhabitants. He says that he has a vibro bank in his London laboratory that will help him detect the missing sample.

Back in London, Liz Shaw breaks off from her attempts to find a way for UNIT to fight off the threat of the Autons. She is peeved that the Doctor left her without warning but watches in interest as he shines ultra-violet light on the sample of dust that the Brigadier has managed to borrow. The Doctor tells them that the sample is from the planet Sequiz and is quite dangerous.

Soon after, the Doctor, Brigadier and captain are making their way through Arctic snow towards a building where the Doctor has located the stolen dust. The Doctor strides up to the guards outside the building. They shoot him and he falls. The Brigadier tells the captain not to worry as the Doctor cannot be hurt before he and the captain shoot the guards as the Doctor regains his feet. They enter the laboratory just as Dr Rossi is repeating his experiment. They warn him to stop but he carries on regardless. The dust swirls, there is an eerie sound and the dust becomes a malevolent alien form. Rossi collapses and the Doctor wrestles with the alien. There is a flash and the alien is gone. The Doctor tells them that the Sequiz threat is over but he says that he doesn't know what the alien actually was.

Notes: this story could have been set during Spearhead from Space which was shown in winter but appears to be filmed in the summer, but we choose to list it along the other stories in the annual. It also shows the Doctor being apparently impervious to desert heat, Arctic cold and even bullets.

Invaders Invisible

3rd Doctor, Liz and the Brigadier

As the Doctor drives at night towards a UNIT instillation he sees something solid rise up from the moonlit sea. Ten minutes later he stops his car as black mud slides over a wall into the road near him. He gets out and notices something shining in the mud. He feels a sense of drowsiness and, when he touches the mud with his foot, an electric tingle. He runs back to the car, retrieves a metal canister and scoops up some of the mud. At the UNIT base he asks Liz Shaw to look at the sample while he and the Brigadier take six men and a jeep back to investigate.

However, when they get back to where the mud had been it has vanished. On returning to UNIT headquarters the Doctor is shocked to find Liz pointing a gun at him. Along with Captain Harvey, she has the Doctor and Brigadier tied up and then she sets out to bring back 'the host'. The Doctor notices that Liz and Harvey seem to be behaving without animation in voice or movement.

Several hours pass until Liz returns with a container. The Brigadier has managed to loosen his bonds and says he will soon put a stop to the mutiny. The Doctor warns him that the 'mutineers' are acting under the influence of something deadly. When he sees Liz scoop bowls of black stuff from the tank and order the soldiers at the base to be inoculated he agrees that it is the time for action. The Doctor overpowers Liz while the Brigadier knocks out Harvey. The Doctor looks at his hand and sees that it is inky black. As the Brigadier watches, the Doctor fights an internal battle against the invader and emerges victorious. He plunges his hand into disinfectant and then notices the mass of black stuff in the tank is trying to flow over the edges.

Captain Harvey rises to his feet and wrestles the Brigadier but the Doctor emerges from a cupboard with an x-ray machine. The captain slumps to the floor and the Doctor tells the Brigadier that the insurrection is over. He x-rays Liz and tells the Brigadier that neither she nor Harvey, nor anyone else they may have touched, will remember what happened. He says that a flying saucer dropped the slime into the sea. It is a mass of viruses that, combined together, can infiltrate the minds of the victims and turn them into a colony or hive for the aliens. He says that the saucer has now gone, its job done, and it will not return.

The Dark Planet

3rd Doctor, Liz and the Brigadier

The Doctor is driving at speed down a country road with Liz at his side. He swerves into a field to avoid a car being driven erratically in the opposite direction. When the other car crashes, Liz dashes off to call for help while the Doctor investigates the scene. He sees a young man lying unconscious in the car. When he opens the door a sheath of papers is blown out by the wind. He sees a wet patch in the man's pocket and reaches in. He withdraws a broken bottle containing something that vaguely resembles a slug.

When Liz returns with the news that police and ambulance are on their way, she finds him looking at one of the pieces of paper that blew from the car. Neither she nor the Doctor can understand what they are looking at and wonder if it is a new kind of maths.

The ambulance arrives to take the man to the local hospital. A policeman in attendance notices that the Doctor has cut his hand on the broken bottle and suggests that he goes to the hospital, too. The Doctor declines and asks where the man may have come from. The policeman says that he looks like a student from Sayle College nearby. The Doctor then asks Liz if there is a biologist nearby. She remembers that Professor Meechley lives at Potter's End.

Liz directs the Doctor to the professor's house. It is obvious that Meechley was expecting a visitor and is genuinely upset when he is told of the car crash. However, it is soon apparent that he had asked the student to bring along a specimen and he is most interested in the thing that the Doctor shows him, though he expects the Doctor to merely hand it over and drive away. Liz persuades the professor to attend to the Doctor's injured hand but, as he does so, the Doctor slumps into unconsciousness. By the time he has revived they find that the biologist and his new specimen have vanished.

They make their way to an appointment with the Brigadier who seems less than concerned with this affair and more interested in the return of the Yeti. He suggests that the whole thing is a prank being played on the professor by the student, Philip Larrent. Neither can UNIT's scientists shed any light on the piece of paper that the Doctor found. However, when a telephone call informs them that Meechley, too, has had a car crash, the Brigadier grows more interested. Further prompting informs them that the professor drove into a river and one of his rescuers kicked a slug-like thing into the river. In a leap of logic, Liz guesses that the Doctor didn't have a car crash because he isn't from Earth and therefore immune to the specimen's influence.

Some research shows that Sayle College has only been open for two years. The Doctor drives there and arrives in darkness. He parks outside the walls and then climbs over. With apparent clumsiness he tumbles off the wall into a ditch and pretends to be unconscious. He is found almost immediately and carried into the college by two figures that seem to have no difficulty bearing his weight. He is placed on a couch and overhears a phone call from the Brigadier arranging to meet the principal the next day. He discerns that the appointment is about the student, Larrent, and that the Doctor is expected to accompany the Brigadier.

He waits until he is alone and then creeps through the corridors to a laboratory. There, he finds more specimens in jars. They are similar to the one that Larrent was carrying. Moving on, he enters an art room where he finds a man who introduces himself as Clifford Leane. He is a one-armed painter and his only hand is bandaged yet he seems to be completing the latest in a series of alien landscapes. He tells the Doctor that, at first, he fought back, but now he acknowledges that the aliens are superior to man in every way.

He tells the Doctor that the aliens are from a dark, cold world and are dying out. They have come to Earth in their spaceships and are teaching humans their knowledge so that they can replace the aliens when they are dead. The only thing they need to do to pass on their knowledge is to be nearby. He adds that the population of an Alpine village was transported to their planet in 1777 but all of the villagers died so this new way of teaching was thought of.

The Doctor decides he needs to do something about this and stumbles back to the laboratory through the dark corridors. His mind seems to be freezing up. He reaches for one of the specimen jars but has to sit down. Someone enters and tells him that the aliens cannot communicate with the Doctor and so he has to be eradicated. This assailant starts to strangle the Doctor but he is saved by Leane. The Doctor watches in a daze as two men fight in the dark and then a fire breaks out. Leane throws the Doctor to safety from a window.

The next morning, there is nothing left of the college but a blackened shell. The professors and students of the college are all in a strange state of shock. When the Brigadier and Liz arrive at the hospital to visit the Doctor, he tells them that the college inhabitants were to be taken to an alien planet and are conditioned to be there. They need to be reconditioned to Earth life. The Brigadier is upset that the chance to learn so much from the aliens has gone but the Doctor speculates that there will be further contact for the aliens are not likely to give up their search for successors.

Caverns of Horror

3rd Doctor, Liz and the Brigadier

The Doctor and Liz stare in wonder a beautiful crystalline grotto. The Brigadier has warned them to stay together. They hear rifle fire further on in the cavern and discuss recent events: the sentry that was sent back to sick bay; three earth tremors. The Doctor moves on down the tunnel, intending to stop the shooting. Liz, left behind, is grabbed by a claw from the darkness. She screams and passes out.

The Doctor races back and sees her being held by what looks like a giant praying mantis. The Doctor points his laser pistol at the creature but it drops Liz and scurries off down a tunnel. The Brigadier arrives and tells the Doctor that he has lost a corporal near a large rock fall. The Doctor tells him to get his men to bring some cyanide gas and the two of them make for the rock fall, leaving two soldiers with Liz. The UNIT soldiers dig a small hole in the rocks and the Doctor squeezes through. He is grabbed at once by some of the large insects and carried to a cavern. In small niches he sees spindly bundles and smaller insects. He is pushed into one of the niches and the insects push something dark into his midriff. He explodes into horrified action, ripping the stuff from his belly and blazing away with his laser pistol.

He shoots many insects as he fights his way back to the hole in the rock fall. He fights his way through and in horror he tells Liz that the insects planted a larva on him, intending it to eat through him. He tells the soldiers to kill every insect and, in revulsion, he leaves the caves.

A Universe Called Fred

3rd Doctor, Liz and the Brigadier

In the UNIT laboratory, the Doctor is talking about the possibility of creating a sub-space radio. He says the last one he made escaped through the dimensions. Two days later he has made a machine capable of communicating with life-forms that exist at a sub-atomic level. Liz thinks that he is talking nonsense but the Doctor insists that he is receiving signals from a universe located somewhere inside a glass jar. He names the universe Fred after an orderly who brings them their tea.

Two days further on, the Doctor has contrived a belt that will shrink him down to the size of inhabitants of the tiny universe. Fortunately he has made a spare belt and Liz grabs it, saying that she is coming with him.

They find themselves on a planet that is being menaced by a giant blue rogue star. The Doctor says that this star was mentioned by the aliens that he received radio messages from. Almost at once they are greeted by a party of flying humanoids. The newcomers produce weapons and accuse the Doctor of being the magician that conjured up the blue star. Liz begs him to return them to their own laboratory but the Doctor refuses, saying that he has not achieved what he set out to do.

He tells the flying aliens that they have come to help but they are accused of being spies from the planet Antar. The flying men, Valerons, fly them to a great city and lock them in a cell. They are surprised to find themselves joined by an elderly man called Dynil who brings them food. He says that he is the last of the Antarians, his race was wiped out by the armies of Valerus and they too will be wiped out by the blue star. It was he who sent the plea for help as he saw the rogue star approaching but the Valerons are oblivious to the threat.

The Doctor says that he can help if they can return to the mountain top where they were captured. Dynil forces open the bars of the cell and flies them back to the mountain. Before anybody can do anything the Doctor and Liz find themselves back in the UNIT laboratory facing the perplexed Brigadier. The Doctor thanks him for saving their lives and offers to drive Liz home to rest after her ordeal.

Comic strips in blueShort stories in black

Annual 1973

Released: September 1972
ISBN: 0 7235 0179 3

Dark Intruders

3rd Doctor and Jo

The Doctor, Jo and Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart are on board the American aircraft carrier Pohantos to observe the splashdown of the capsule from the mission to Mars. Unseen by anyone the two astronauts, Curley (the American) and Dermann (an Englishman) are lying inert and only speaking in a mechanical way until a brief piercing hum in the capsule subsides and they return to 'life'.

As the ship sails to Hawaii the Doctor and Brigadier impatiently wait for their turn to speak to the astronauts. They decide to speak to the biologist, Hilstrom, to see what he has found out from the men and Jo goes with them. Outside his cabin they discover a guard slumped against the wall. Hilstrom's door is open and Jo finds the scientist is also unconscious. As the man revives the Doctor speculates on what happened to him and asks the Brigadier to arrange a visit to the capsule.

Inside the capsule the Doctor mutters about a vibro bank. He emerges from the capsule with an envelope of dust particles and heads back to his quarters. As they arrive they disturb a shadowy figure who flees, dropping the Doctor's vibro bank. He uses it to analyse the dust and tells them it comes from the planet Minos. He suspects a scout ship from there was waiting on Mars for the Earthmen. Minoans, he explains, are cold, ruthless and ambitious. The Minoans have infiltrated the astronauts. After hearing the Doctor's name mentioned they would have tried to steal his equipment to keep their secret safe.

Dermann and Curley are using a brain scanner to broadcast the thoughts of scientists like Hilstrom to the Minoan ship. The Doctor pretends to be the mineralogist De Bassio that night and lies in his bed at night. There is a hissing - the Minoans attempt to mesmerise him, which he fights off - then the astronauts enter and attach terminals to his temples. Instead of allowing the thoughts to be drained from his head he attacks, mentally. Dermann and Curley are returned to themselves and the Minoan ship retreats.

War in the Abyss

3rd Doctor and Jo

The sun is swelling and tides are rising. Jo is worried that her uncle's oil rig in Antarctica has not been heard from for days. Earthquakes have been reported in the Arctic Ocean too. The Doctor tells Jo that he thinks the Earth is moving closer to the sun.

The Doctor and Jo get a ride with Major General Carter's Antarctic expedition to find out what is going on. When their jet lands, it is apparent that no signals can be sent from anywhere on the Antarctic. The Doctor and Jo take a snowcat and follow the pipelines to where they disappear into the snow. They discover the gauges on the pipes showing no oil is flowing. They return to the snowcat but it plunges through soft snow and drops onto firm ice. They crawl out and hear machinery. Jo's uncle calls to them and they find the oil rig crew locked in a metal room.

In the course of the discussion the Doctor explains his theory that someone is moving the Earth towards the sun. Jo's uncle reports that his men have experienced telepathic machines, robots called Klatris, who want to scorch the air and water (which is poison to them) from the planet's surface. The Doctor theorises that this is because humans are stealing the Klatris' oil from under the surface of the planet.

Having seen a geological map of the rig the Doctor realises they are on the lip of an extinct volcano. The men lay a trail of dynamite to the volcano and then flee as the Doctor presses the plunger. They reach the jet as the volcano explodes into life and the Doctor orders their immediate evacuation.

Hunt to the Death

3rd Doctor and Jo

Something materialises among a flock of sheep on the Yorkshire moors. It takes the shape of a giant mantis with a dozen legs and takes some time to recover from its journey through time. It hears a faint whining noise and sinks into the hillside in alarm. The whine increases and four squat humanoids materialise in the same spot. They wear silver-grey uniforms and have glistening helmets. Armed with bulbous ray-guns, they fan out to search. They detect the place where the Kelad stood and vanish.

Jo and the Doctor are driving across the moors in his yellow car when their headlights pick out a distressed man in climbing gear. He asks for help in the form of a pothole rescue party. He is Bill Harkin from Manchester and one of his three companions has broken his leg in Tumbling Pot. They drive to a phone box and call the police then head to the mouth of the pothole.

They accompany Harkin down the rope ladder into the cave and down a steep tunnel. On the way they meet one of the squat aliens whom the Doctor greets as Fhibo. It transpires that the Doctor went to Llios in his TARDIS and freed the people from the Kelads, robots with warped minds. Fhibo explains that his people are hunting down every Kelad until they are wiped out.

Their conversation is interrupted by a scream from below. Harkin strides off to investigate and Fhibo vanishes. The Doctor and Jo follow Harkin, eventually crawling through narrow tunnels. Jo's clothes are torn and wet but she insists on going on. Another scream leads them to a large cave here the giant Kelad has three humans pinned in the corner. The Doctor instructs everyone to whistle to confuse the robot's radar while they help the injured man onto a ledge. As it begins to attack again Fhibo and his men arrive and shoot the Kelad which crumples to the floor.

On the surface Bill Harkin is waiting for the approaching rescue party, telling Jo he intends to go back down to dismantle the robot, but the Doctor tells him that Fhibo will have taken it as a trophy.

Doorway into Nowhere

3rd Doctor and Jo

Giles Winston, a friend of the Doctor's and the world's most brilliant physicist, has vanished. The Doctor and Jo trace him to an abandoned wartime factory in the middle of nowhere. Once they have made their way through the night to this place and penetrated the factory they find themselves in a brightly lit room where they are confronted by the Master.

He explains to the Doctor that he has found a way that both of them can escape their exile and be undetected by the Time Lords. He has found a way into another dimension and has lured the Doctor here so that he can help Winston perfect the gateway. It is only when the Master mentions the word 'conquest' that Winston realises that his work is not peaceful.

The Doctor and Jo join the physicist in looking through the gateway at an Earth-like planet that has two suns. The Doctor asks the master if his plan is to conquer the reality beyond the gateway or to use forces from there to conquer this universe. At this point a flock of dragons take flight in the new world.

The Master drags Jo through the gateway and offers the Doctor the ultimatum of helping him overcome the new universe but Jo struggles away from him and leaps back through the gateway. The Master uses his weapon to shoot back into the laboratory from the other reality but hits the equipment within, destroying it. The gateway promptly vanishes.

The Claw

3rd Doctor and Jo

The Doctor and Jo, along with Captain Yates, are in a car driven by Corporal Tibbins, travelling through Scottish countryside. Suddenly a patch of mist forms into the shape of a claw which grabs at the car. In avoiding it they leave the road and plough into a field. The only evidence of the attack is a long groove in the car's roof.

Continuing on their journey, the Doctor wonders if the claw is related to the disappearance of two men from a remote island where the Defence Department is testing a new weapon under the charge of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart.

They are about to board a launch to reach the island when an elderly local man, MacFee, asks for a lift to retrieve his lobster pots near the island. This perplexes Yates because the man and his pots are in a restricted area. He sends MacFee off in a temper.

On the island the Brigadier informs the Doctor that another man has vanished, during a sea mist. Jo asks the Doctor if the disappearance is linked to the claw and he nods, wondering if it was a genuine sea mist or an emanation. They arrive at the building where the island's atomic power packs are stored only for a scientist to tell them that one of the packs has been drained. Instead of following Yates in to investigate the Doctor says he is going to take a stroll along the beach.

Jo and the Doctor see MacFee in a boat picking up a lobster pot. He rows ashore and places crystals in the pot. The Doctor accosts him and suggests the crystals contain the power he has just drained from the pack. MacFee suddenly transforms into a cloud of mist and the shape of a claw which grabs the Doctor.

He finds himself inside a spaceship in the company of a lobster. The Doctor can't help but suggest improvements to the gravity field selector before the lobster silences him. The Doctor surmises that they are inside the lobster pot and that the MacFee/lobster is a creature of unstable molecular structure. It explains it lost power in flight and landed on Earth, stealing power and liquidating the men who tried to stop it. The creature knows of the Doctor and confesses the idea of disguising its ship as a lobster pot was inspired by the TARDIS.

As the creature prepares for take-off the Doctor takes one of Jo's hairpins from his pocket and short-circuits a device. He leaps out of the hatch as the ship explodes. Jo finds him lying on the beach beside the smouldering remains of a lobster pot.

Saucer of Fate

3rd Doctor and Jo

A small flying saucer, about two feet in diameter, lands on Druid's Table, a flat rock outcrop near John Breen's farm. The farmer sees it and picks it up, then takes it to his house. He calls the police and then his son, a journalist. By the time Ernest Breen arrives his father has vanished. He takes the saucer to UNIT HQ but disappears from his car before he can hand it over. Despite the Doctor's warnings the Brigadier picks up the saucer and takes it to the Doctor's laboratory. He too vanishes. The Doctor recognises the technology of the saucer as belonging to Triolites from Ur. He knocks up a device of his own and instructs Jo in how to control it then grabs the saucer and is transported aboard the Triolite ship. He signals Jo who sets the device in motion, wrecking the ship while the Doctor, Brigadier and the two Breens escape.

The Phaser Aliens

3rd Doctor and Jo

Strange lights are seen in the sky in the Australian outback. All of the world's diamonds disappear, followed by its carborundum and steel. The Institute Contra Aliens (ICA) is set up, even though no-one has seen the aliens. The Doctor is invited to join and concludes that the aliens are able to put out of phase the vibrations of light waves so that they remain invisible. He concocts a pair of spectacles that show him the aliens and their craft. He persuades others to use the glasses but they either fail to see the aliens or deny that what they see exists.

He sets Jo to making more of the glasses while he adapts the technology to make a weapon. Despite claiming that the aliens seem peaceful and that he has no time for diamonds the Doctor feels that Earth should be inviolate against invasions and uses the weapon, mounted on a helicopter, to slaughter a small number of the creatures. The glasses Jo has made will help more pilots to attack the aliens, their ships and the strange tapered towers they live in. This will return their collection of the hardest materials that these insubstantial creatures have encountered.

Comic strips in blueShort stories in black

Annual 1974

Released: September 1973
ISBN: 0 7235 0185 8

Listen -- The Stars!

3rd Doctor and Jo

Jo Grant is helping Professor Vetich as he conducts research into inter-stellar audio signals. After drawing a blank, yet again, they leave the laboratory for a coffee break. As they leave, Mrs. Prentice enters to clean up the laboratory. Unknown to her she is being watched by the Master on his scanner. He sees as she trips over her shoelaces and bangs her head on the corner of a desk. She also bumps the main control switch. The room fills with a hissing sound and then she hears a voice saying that it is Zex from the system gger. (The system gger is in the fourth paraleptic level of the galaxy). The Master watches excitedly, realising that only the bump on the head has made the woman receptive to the signal. He uses his equipment to take over Mrs. Prentice's mind and communicates through her with Zex. He says that he can move Zex's mind into the cleaner and then together they can conquer the Earth.

In the rest room, Jo meets the Brigadier. He says that he and Captain Yates have returned with the Doctor after collecting some parts for the TARDIS. Jo realises her time with Vetich is over and she needs to get back to work with the Doctor. Just then the lights go out. When they come back on again they are accompanied by a hum that Vetich recognises as the ionic vibrations of his machine. At the same moment the Master strides into the room. Gliding beside him is Mrs. Prentice. The Brigadier steps forward to arrest the Master but the cleaner uses a force field from her mop to knock him aside. The Brigadier realises that the Master is heading for the Operations Room. Jo races to the laboratory and finds the Doctor bending over an unconscious Yates. The Doctor wonders where the cleaner got her powers from and Vetich suggests that they listen to a recording of what happened while they were out of the laboratory. They realise that Zex has made a Time Jump to Earth.

The building is rocked by an explosion. They race down to the Control room and see a pall of smoke. Amid the smoke is the cleaner, swinging her mop and flinging soldiers about. The Doctor notices the way that she is gliding and hits on an idea. He returns to the laboratory for a nail, a strip of metal, a fork and an egg cup. Along with Vetich he makes an Astro Modulator that will disrupt Zex's equilibrium. In no time at all the cleaner is restored to normal and the event is over.

Out of the Green Mist

3rd Doctor and Jo

Jo returns to UNIT HQ from a day out and finds the sentry at the gate lying unconscious. Looking up at the laboratory window she sees a green glow. As she passes through the building she sees the Brigadier, Captain Slade and a corporal lying asleep. She reaches the laboratory and enters. The Doctor breaks off from a conversation with a glowing green mist and tells her to get out. The mist replies but the Doctor warns it to leave Jo alone. Jo races to the Doctor's side and bumps him away from the cloud which screeches and then vanishes.

The Doctor tells her that he was working on a gadget that connected him to an alternative universe. The green cloud was an alien from that dimension. The Doctor mourns his broken contact with the alien and the loss of a chance to learn from it. Jo is just encouraging him to use his equipment to re-establish the link when the Master enters. He says that he has overheard this most interesting conversation. He decides he wants the Doctor's machine for himself fires a pistol at the Doctor. The bullet stops six inches from the Doctor's face and falls to the floor. A green mist appears in the room and says that the entity the Doctor was speaking to before was as evil as the Master. The creature speaks of the beauty and mysteries of the Universe while keeping the Master frozen. The Doctor asks Jo to recalibrate his machine and then steps into the mist. He vanishes.

The Brigadier enters with some men. They lead away the Master and the Brigadier tells Jo that the Master's men (who deployed sleeping gas) have all been rounded up. Five minutes later, the Doctor returns. He is stupefied after years of learning about the wonders of existence and astonished that only five minutes has passed on Earth. When Jo asks him what he saw he tells her that it is all fading like a wonderful dream.

The Time Thief

3rd Doctor and Jo

For the third time in as many months, raiders launch an attack on a U.N. ship taking radioactive materials and electronic equipment to a nuclear power station in the Antarctic. This time the ship is wrecked by First World War bombers. Previously the attacks were by a fleet of Elizabethan sailing ships and a paddle wheeled frigate. The Brigadier deploys the Doctor and Jo to investigate. As they drive to an airfield, Jo asks if the raiders are ghosts. The Doctor thinks that they may have leaked in from other periods in time.

An aeroplane drops the Doctor and Jo, aboard a hovercraft, into the sea near the lost ship's last sighting. They survey the area and then put on frogman outfits. They swim down to the wreck. As they investigate Jo sees other divers. The Doctor gives chase but the other divers turn out to be three men on small jet bikes. The pursuit ends when the Doctor and Jo swim into a pink force field. They are then attacked by a huge sea serpent and swim into a cave for safety. The Doctor radios Mike Bailey in the hovercraft and asks him to send an ultrasonic wave to the sea bed. This drives off the serpent.

The Doctor returns to the hovercraft, builds a force field dispenser, and then he and Jo return to the sea bed. As they pass through the force field they travel through time and space. They emerge from the water and the Doctor says that the serpent originated on the planet Ekaypia so he imagines that is where they are. They strip off their diving suits and are surrounded by Ekayprian warriors. These green skinned humanoids say that their master will soon be master of Earth.

A plane takes them to a gloomy fortress. Showing a lack of surprise, the Doctor faces up to his old enemy, the Master. The Master says that he will soon be able to use his time transporter to send armies of Ekayprian warriors to any point on Earth. The Doctor and Jo are put in a dungeon where he tells her that the Ekayprians have been hypnotised by the Master. Jo suggests that he do the same to their guard. This plan works and they are soon back in the transporter chamber where the Doctor adjusts the machine to self-destruct when it is switched on. They then rush to a plane and the Doctor punches the guard to the floor.

He flies the plane back to the water from which they emerged. They put on their diving suits, swim back to the place where they crossed over from Earth and then swim back to the surface. The cave explodes in flames as the transporter blows up and the Doctor and Jo are rescued by Mike in the hovercraft.

The Fathom Trap

3rd Doctor and Jo

A plane carrying General Byland to UNIT headquarters has been lost at sea. The Brigadier has been told to find the plane, the pilot and the general. He takes the Doctor and Jo with him on the support ship Explorer. The three of them then enter a submersible craft piloted by Jim Burton. At a depth of one thousand metres they spot the wing of the lost aircraft. The Doctor asks Jim to scan the sea bed and they spot a huge mound. Jim clears the sand and sludge off the top of the mound top reveal a large hatch which begins to open. The Doctor orders Jim to get them away as quickly as possible but the small craft is pulled into a shaft.

When the four people come round they find themselves bound at ankle and wrist by thin strips. They seem to be in a metallic docking chamber. The Doctor tells them that he was the first to recover and has already met their captors: they are alien. At that moment a group of large serpents enter the chamber. Two of them wheel in canisters containing the bodies of the general and his pilot. Through telepathy, one of the serpents tells the Doctor that they are Kluss and their ship crashed on Earth. They rescued the two men but cannot repair them unless they have a model to work from. The Brigadier volunteers and is taken to a chamber while surgeons study him and then operate on the two men.

Jo watches the operation while the Doctor explains to the Kluss how they can extract magnesium and potassium from the sea so that they can power up their craft. The humans return to their submarine, the Kluss launch into space and the Doctor wishes them a safe journey.

Menace of the Molags

3rd Doctor and Jo

A large space ship drifts over London and hovers over the Houses of Parliament. It causes engines and clocks to stop, lights to fail and panic to grip the city. The Doctor and Jo, out for an early morning stroll are perplexed. Similar scenes are repeated throughout the world's major cities. The Doctor races to the Brigadier and demands a helicopter to help him reach the ship. The Brigadier refuses, on the Prime Minister's orders. Just then, a melodious voice booms out. It tells the people of Earth that the aliens are here to prevent a catastrophe that will destroy the Earth. It also orders all shipping to return to port, marine and nuclear research to be halted and laboratories to be handed over. It concludes with the warning that global destruction will follow if the requests are not met in five days. Sensing terrible danger, the Doctor and Jo leap into a helicopter.

They fly up to the space ship and enter through a hatch that opens in the side. They are greeted by an alien with hors and goat's legs. The Doctor surmises that the arrival of these people has something to do with the Molags. The alien agrees but says that his people's appearance will not help them in the negotiations that are being demanded by the United Nations. The Doctor agrees: the demonic appearance has already become a part of Earth folklore. He also tells Jo that Molags are seeds that arrive on planets, germinate in the oceans, grow to creatures that are a mile high, eat everything and then explode into seeds again to continue their journey across the universe.

The Doctor and Jo depart in their helicopter to try to stop all shipping; the engines of large ships will speed up the germination of the Molags. Meanwhile, the aliens land in a London park to try to negotiate but their appearance causes panic among the watching crowds. This is exacerbated by the appearance of huge dinosaur-like creatures emerging from the water.

The Doctor appears again, giving the friendly aliens some equipment that they requested. He uses it to build an energy reversing ray and the aliens use the ray to reduce the Molags to their seed form. Then the aliens spend two days in underwater research laboratories killing the seeds. They depart, leaving Jo and the Doctor to ponder the fact that the aliens' demonic appearance has again prevented them from being seen as friends by the people that they saved.

Talons of Terror

3rd Doctor and Jo

The Doctor and Jo are driving in Bessie across the Yorkshire moors. They are on their way to a conference in a secluded house. As they bump down a cart track, a terrifying creature (one eye, large beak, talons) flies at them. The Doctor swerves around it and accelerates away. Then a flying saucer sweeps in and fires a beam at the creature which disappears. The saucer lands and three men emerge, wearing silver suits and carrying weapons. They salute the Doctor who thanks them for saving him. They say that they are taking him into custody for his own safety but they address him as Premier Lutz. Jo blurts out that there is a similarity between the Doctor and the Premier but the Kreffs say she is trying to protect her friend. They add that they have come from the future to save him from the Perigons.

They take Jo and the Doctor into the saucer and show them some history films. These relate the setting up of a Galactic Peace Force on the instigation of Premier Lutz. This force saved the Kleffs from a Paragon invasion. Now the Perigons have come back in time to change history and complete their invasion. Captain Riombo of the Kleffs says that they did not count how many Perigons got through the Time Vortex before the saucer came through and sealed the Vortex behind them.

The Kleffs land their saucer near to High Crag Hall and escort the Doctor and Jo to the gates. There, they are attacked by five Perigons. As a fierce fight ensues, the Doctor leads Jo to safety. They see Premier Lutz drive out of the gates, taking his yellow vintage car for a spin on the moors. The Doctor chases on a bicycle and catches up with the Premier just as a Perigon attacks. The Doctor holds it at bay, like a matador with his cape, until the Kleff saucer arrives and destroys it with its death ray. The Doctor introduces the Premier to the Kleffs and then an army escort drives up to take him back to the conference. The Kleffs wonder how they can get home through the sealed Vortex but the Doctor tells them that he can adjust their craft to help out.

Old Father Saturn

3rd Doctor and Jo

The Doctor, Jo and the Brigadier are aboard a nuclear submarine. The Doctor looks at some charts and says that he has found the place he is looking for. The submarine's commander tells him that it is too deep for any divers at that point but the Doctor insists he is going down. There is something emitting a signal on the sea bed which he needs to investigate.

Before the diving party can get their suits on, something rises up from the bottom of the ocean. The Doctor joins the commander and the Brigadier in the conning tower as the submarine surfaces. Beside them rises a huge water spout and, within it, a giant lobster or crab. The monster explodes due to the sudden pressure difference and leaves a metal sphere that must have been in its claw. Jo joins them to say that the mysterious signal has stopped.

A boat is put out to sea from the submarine and the four people from the tower join a rating in it. They cross over to the new object and the impatient Doctor leaps into the water and swims up to one of the craft's windows. A man lets him in and, as the others join them, they hear the Doctor and the stranger speaking English. The Doctor welcomes the visitor to Earth and hears a strange tale. The ship came from one of the moons of Saturn and arrived in prehistoric times, seeing vast dinosaurs walking through forests. The crew landed at the bottom of the sea and switched on their suspended animation unit. This man was awoken by the emergency systems. He seems to be able to read the Doctor's mind.

The Doctor informs this man that he has been under the ocean for tens of millions of years. The stranger seems incredulous. However, when he raises his helmet, his face turns green and he dies. The other crew members revive from their life support pods and step out into the craft. They, too, choke and die. The Doctor reflects sombrely on this occurrence.

Galactic Gangster

3rd Doctor and Jo

The Doctor is with Jo and a group of UNIT soldiers in a dark hangar. There seems to be some sort of menace in the darkness: Jo has disappeared and a sergeant collapses from lack of oxygen. The Brigadier drags the man to safety while the Doctor suggests that there is a vacuum in the middle of the hangar. The Brigadier is perplexed: the Doctor has built a sub-space radio and they have come to this point after a set of coordinates were received on it.

The Brigadier suggests that the message the Doctor received was for somebody else. He radios around his men deployed in the hangar but none of them has seen Jo. The Doctor reflects that the message came without words or symbols - merely a picture that appeared in his head.

Something appears in the centre of the hangar: a scene of a vast battle in space between two fleets of ships. It ends with a loud peal of sound and the battle scene is replaced with a giant, nine feet tall, holding Jo hostage. The giant says that he will use mankind as slave labour to rebuild his fleets and regain his empire. At that moment Jo screams and the Doctor sets off to rescue her. The Brigadier warns him that it would need an army to overpower such a creature but the Doctor insists that he is nothing more than an intergalactic gangster.

A second figure, similar to the first, emerges into the hangar. The Doctor races forward towards Jo. He looks at all of the energy weapons that the man is carrying, ignores the, and floors the alien with a punch on the jaw. The second figure, grave and mild, says that the last of the galactic conquerors has now been defeated and he will be remade; time will reform around him as though he never was. The kindly alien salutes the humans as his distant ancestors before the two men disappear. While the Doctor ruminates on all of this, Jo goes off to make coffee back at the trucks.

Comic strips in blueShort stories in black

Annual 1975

Released: September 1974
ISBN: 0 7235 0244 7

Notes: most of these stories feature the Doctor and Jo travelling together but three, Before the Legend, Scorched Earth and The Time Thief, have Sarah as the companion (though the illustrations for all of the stories, including these three, seem to be of Jo). In The Time Thief the Doctor tells Sarah about Gallifrey but in Before the Legend she has no idea of the Doctor's origins.

The House That Jack Built

3rd Doctor and Jo

The Doctor and Jo drag the console out of the TARDIS so that he can fix the directional controller. She leans back against the console which shimmers and then both of them are swept away through the void. Jo realises they are flying through a corridor and then she loses consciousness. She wakes in a white room with the Doctor standing over her. There is a single door in the wall. The Doctor approaches the door and grasps the handle - he receives an electric shock and hears distant laughter. A voice intones 'Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?' He surmises they are the victims of a lunatic. The Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to blow the lock on the door and they step out into darkness.

Suddenly, a carousel is illuminated in front of them. It spins at a tremendous speed, casting a multitude of lights over them. A voice tells Jo to step forward and, even though she knows this will result in her being dashed to pieces by the carousel, she does so. The Doctor hauls her backwards and slaps her face. The carousel slows down. Jo blames herself for their predicament, saying that she must have pressed something on the TARDIS console but the Doctor reminds her that it was disconnected at the time. He thinks that someone has brought them here for their own devices.

They pass out of this room into the next. There are two full-length mirrors with glowing frames. The Doctor dismisses this room and hurries them on but Jo feels that there is something that needs investigating. They step into a huge hall which has a vast chess board for a floor. At the centre stands a blue police box. Jo steps onto the board and one of the large chess pieces comes to life: it is a castle with whirring blades. The Doctor pulls her to safety as the castle hurtles towards her and then does the same when a bishop attacks.

They run to the police box and dodge several more pieces. The Doctor opens the door of the box and they shelter in its darkness. They feel themselves moving up. The elevator deposits them in a control room with a large computer at the centre. The computer tells them that its function is to capture beings and set them tests to see if they can escape. The "Mirror, mirror' voice calls out and Jo says that the way to escape must be in the room with the two mirrors. The computer adds that if they die their bodies will be returns to their planet of origin. The Doctor sets the computer a counter-puzzle, demanding the solution to checkmate in six moves at three-dimensional chess. While the computer is engrossed in this they go back down in the elevator and into the mirror room.

The computer's voice is whining at an ever higher pitch and the room is crumbling around them as the Doctor drags the two mirrors face to face. This forms an infinity corridor from the reflections and they step through the glass. They are hurtled back to the laboratory from which they started.

Jo asks if checkmate is possible in six moves. The Doctor says that it is but Jo notices his tongue is in his cheek.

The Doctor and Jo are answering a distress call. They make their way across an eerie, misty landscape towards a building at the top of a rise. The building is a dome, with a tower rising from it and a pulsating sphere on top of the tower. To get to it they have to walk down from the TARDIS and cross a valley. The mist at the bottom of the valley is thicker and as they pass through it Jo has the sensation that hands are pulling at her. She can hear a roaring noise in her ears. Voices begin to shriek her name. The Doctor urges her on, even slapping her face at one point.

The building, when they reach it, is much larger than they imagined. The room that they find themselves in is empty but there are paintings on the walls. Each is an exquisitely detailed picture of life-forms that Jo remembers seeing in the mists. There are thousands of these pictures and in each the eyes of the creature have a deathless, lunatic determination.

They make their way up the stairs and each floor they come to is stocked with artwork depicting the same creatures: one floor is given to sculptures, another to tapestries. Finally, they reach a small room containing a bed. Lying there is a small, wrinkled creature the size of a large baby. He thanks the Doctor for answering his distress call and begs the Doctor to press a button. As the Doctor does so the creature springs up in triumph and the Doctor finds himself caught by two iron grips that hold his arms. The creature proclaims himself to be life itself. He says that his body is wearing out and that the Doctor's will be his new one. The Doctor will become a phantom in the mist and his portrait will join the others who have lost their bodies over the millennia.

The creature indicates a knife and tells Jo to use it to kill the Doctor. She battles against the thought until finally she throws the knife away. The creature, exhausted by his exertions, dies. The time travellers make their way through the valley back to the TARDIS, glad to be alive.

Accompanied by four illustrations.

The Time Thief

3rd Doctor and Sarah Jane

The Doctor and Sarah Jane smith are enjoying a cup of tea in the TARDIS when a bleeping sound alerts the Doctor. He passes through a hatch in to a secret room to talk to Karr, a Time Lord on Gallifrey, via his scanner. Karr tells him that the villain, Madrigor, has reappeared.

The Doctor returns to Sarah and explains that Madrigor was the youngest ever Time Lord, a gifted scientist, who unfortunately turned his talents to crime. After evading capture, Madrigor hid for a long time. Now the Doctor has been asked to find out what he is up to.

When they arrive at Madrigor's galactic lair Sarah is surprised to find how beautiful it is. Then she bends down to touch a flower and discovers that it is made of plastic. The Doctor guesses that it is something a little more sophisticated than plastic and Madrigor agrees with him. The cosmic villain has been waiting to see who would come looking for him. He welcomes them to Lunargov III and takes them inside for refreshments. The Doctor politely enquires about Madrigor's plans. He guesses that it is to use his army of robots, Terrestoids, to take over Gallifrey itself. Madrigor congratulates him on guessing correctly, adding that he also intends to steal the Time Ioniser and use it to rule the galaxy.

A terrestoid shows the visitors to their quarters. Sarah is repulsed by their too-human appearance. No sooner have they been locked into a room than the Doctor produces an Ion Polarity Retarder to help them escape. They make straight for the control room but Madrigor catches them in there. The Doctor comes up with a brilliant plan - he lunges at Madrigor and knocks his ray gun to the floor. Next, he and Sarah run back to the TARDIS and the Doctor does something clever to send Madrigor and his hideout to somewhere safely out of harm's way.

Dead on Arrival

3rd Doctor and Jo

The TARDIS is returning from Mezlob, a planet with twenty seven times the gravity of Earth. The Doctor tells Jo to get into the molecular adjustor cabinet. As she does so the ARDIS moves into a cosmic dust cloud, causing the Doctor to increase the power in the TARDIS to compensate. This has the effect of causing Jo to fall unconscious. When she wakes up she is in a park on Earth. She sees two squat, green-skinned aliens planning an invasion and runs off to find the Doctor. She follows him into a church where he is placing flowers on a coffin - hers! She tries to grab the Doctor's arm but her hand goes right through him.

The Doctor returns to his UNIT laboratory where the Brigadier shows him a flashing warning light. The Doctor realises that there is a hole in the space-time continuum and somebody is trying to get through. He decides to create a force field to block the hole. Jo thinks that she must somehow warn the Doctor about the two aliens who are still in the park waiting for a materialiser to allow the rest of their invaders through. She arrives at the laboratory as the Doctor seems to be getting some sort of psychic signal that he must remove the force field.

As soon as he removes the force field the Doctor collapses to the floor of the laboratory. Jo is amazed to see a 'ghost' Doctor watching the scene. He hurries her into the TARDIS and they speed off towards an ever-narrowing gap in the space-time continuum. The TARDIS just makes it through but a Breelian craft carrying a materialiser is too slow and explodes.

The Doctor explains that when Jo was affected by the cosmic dust she was sent to an almost identical alternative Earth where her altered molecular structure made her invisible. Her presence drew the life-force out of that planet's Jo - hence her apparent 'death'. Similarly, the alternative Earth's Doctor was receiving telepathic signals from himself in the TARDIS. Once he released the force-field, allowing the TARDIS through, he too collapsed. Now that the two of them have left the alternative universe their counterparts will revive.

Jo decides that the only answer to this is to make a nice hot cup of tea.

Fugitive From Chance

3rd Doctor and Jo

A pirate ship returns to the English Channel to try to arrange a pardon but is involved in a fierce fight with Royal Navy ships off Dartmouth. Into all of this action comes a flying saucer which fires a beam at the pirate ship. The ship disappears.

The TARDIS is in flight to the Rojak system when the Doctor notices a power fluctuation on a nearby planet. He materialises the TARDIS on a calm, yellow sea and steps out. He is promptly rendered unconscious by a blow to the head. When he recovers, Jo is standing by him. He looks around and notices that he is on an old galleon but it is made entirely of metal. He is faced by the pirate captain, John Mander, who is apparently made out of gold. Mander asks the Doctor what weapons he has brought but the Doctor ignores this and tells him that the planet will explode in less than twenty four hours. Mander asks for an explanation. The Doctor tells him he noticed a power build up as he was passing and heard some naval orders being transmitted

Mander gives a curious explanation: ships from different periods in history have been plucked away at the moment of imminent destruction. They then have to fight each other. If they refuse and press a button asking for a removal order the occupants go to the penance box, a place he would rather not go to again. He adds that the men brought to the planet are all transformed into different materials - some are coal, some glass, others are metals. The Doctor tells Mander he has a plan.

While this is happening, a Second World War frigate closes in on them. The Doctor enters the TARDIS and radios the captain, Botega, to say that he has a plan. Thus, the two ships fight a naval battle that ends in hand-to-hand combat with no killing whatsoever. The whole battle is watched by eager birdmen, from a flying city in the clouds, who place bets on the various stages of the battle. At the end of the battle the Doctor tells Botega to press for a removal order. He does so.

This confuses the birdmen so much - the winner calling for removal - that they send a beam down to draw the crews of both ships to their sky city. When they ask Botega what he was doing, the Doctor steps forward to warn them that their planet is about to explode. The birdmen are dismissive: they have hundreds of flying cities built by slaves stolen from Earth (though a transporter fault means that some of them aren't flesh and blood when they arrive). They boast about their life of entertainment, betting on the outcome of the battles they set up.

The Doctor tries to remind them about the build up of power but the birdmen laugh and say that the build up is in a huge weapon that is about to destroy Earth forever (apparently the new space technology developing on Earth is alarming in some way). The Doctor bets the birdmen that they don't do it. While they are considering this wager, the Earth sailors try to rush the weapon but this is a ruse that allows the Doctor to take the birdman leader by the throat. He orders the birdmen to disperse the energy into space. When this is done he asks for a space ship so that the humans can find a place to live out their lives.

The birdman agrees saying that a Melovian always honours a wager. On the journey to Rojak, the Doctor tells Jo that he has met Melovians before and they were kind and wise. These Melovians were outcasts who had tried to find excitement in a new way but who had clearly learned to temper their ways.

After the Revolution

3rd Doctor and Jo

The TARDIS lands on the planet Freedonia and the Doctor and Jo are greeted by a humanoid called Bolgar. He says that the Doctor's previous visit, where he helped Kamoa lead the revolution, is still taught in history lessons. Bolgar is proud that the revolution rescued the people from indolence and greed.

The Doctor looks around the city and thinks that there is something wrong. When Bolgar shows the Doctor round some laboratories he takes the opportunity to build a circuit jammer. Unknown to the Doctor, he is being watched closely on television monitors. When Bolgar returns, the Doctor tells him that he is aware of what is going on and turns the circuit jammer on him but it doesn't work. Jo and the Doctor end up in a cavern with some ragged prisoners. One of them says that they are waiting for the monster to take them.

A huge scaly monster appears and sweeps the Doctor up in its claws. Just as it is about to swallow him he uses his circuit jammer to stop it in its tracks. Bolgar, watching this happen on a screen, decides to talk to the Doctor.

The Doctor tells him that he has guessed that the inhabitants of the city are all robots, powered by Kamoa's brain cells. The prisoners are part of a despised underclass that the robots are wearing into submission until they can be used as slaves. The Doctor is aghast - this was not the reason why Kamoa led the revolution. Bolgar disagrees and leads the Doctor and Jo to a heavily guarded room where they find the living brain of Kamoa.

The brain tells them that the revolution failed: the people soon turned back to greed and aggression. As such, he built his robots to suppress them and now he is using them to spread his word through the cosmos. He says that they are perfect beings, devoid of pity. Jo objects to this. She says the robots and their leader feel only bitterness and disillusion and are worse than the prisoners they subjugate. Her words have a profound effect on Bolgar who rips out some wires, killing the brain of Kamoa and immobilising all of the robots.

The prisoners are freed from the caverns and the freedom fighters return from the hills to thank the Doctor and Jo for giving them a new start. The time travellers return to the TARDIS, pondering the different philosophies in the universe.

The Battle Within

3rd Doctor and Jo

After several days of travel in the TARDIs the Doctor is surprised to find that they haven't gone anywhere. When he mentions this to Jo a sudden high pitched sound causes him to fall to the floor and his mind leaves his body. A humanoid creature is waiting for him in a decaying swampland. There are the sounds of hideous creatures in the distance. The Doctor thinks there is something familiar but unsettling about his interlocutor but every time he thinks he is about to remember who it is there is a shift in face or voice.

A leering dwarf hurries by in the mist. The nameless man tells the Doctor that the land is not prospering as it once did. The Doctor feels as if he ought to know this place, as if he had once fought great battles here. They walk to a clearing where an array of creatures awaits. The man tells him that these are all the Doctor's creations and that he made this omniverse. When he thought he was travelling in the TARDIS he was actually passing through a myriad dimensions while these creatures waited to lure him and trap him, knowing that the Doctor was overworked and vulnerable.

Jo runs to the Doctor's inert body. His breathing has stopped.

The tentacled and clawed creatures, grizzly and ugly, start to chant, 'One of us!' repeatedly. The man tells the Doctor that he will stay there and submit to the creatures until he has joined them. In revulsion, the Doctor turns and stumbles through a swampy jungle. He is pursued through unfamiliar paths until he reaches rocky ground. He climbs a cliff. Only the man follows. At the top he sees a plateau.

Jo sees the Doctor's eyes flicker and resolves not to let him die.

The man reaches the top of the cliff and confronts the Doctor. As his face shifts the Doctor recognises a parody of his own. The man tells him that, while he has been nurturing good in his soul, the evil has been allowed to flourish here. At last it reveals that it is the Doctor's Death Wish. It has come to make him die.

As he wrestles internally with the man, help comes to the Doctor. Jo's voice tells him that he must live. This gives him the strength to overcome the man and to float free above the mists.

In the TARDIS, Jo is delighted when the Doctor wakes up. She tells him that she felt so helpless but he thanks her for saving his life. He decides to buy her a present.

Before the Legend

3rd Doctor and Sarah Jane

Sarah has been reading a book that says history is destined to repeat itself every 25, 000 years based on the position of the stars. She asks the Doctor if that is true. He dismisses her idea and then takes them out of the TARDIS to their new destination. They step out into a beautiful glade under a blue sky. He tells her that they are on Earth, probably in England. They are suddenly accosted by a group of men carrying clubs. They are dressed in ragged cloths. The leader steps forward to attack the Doctor who punches him to the ground. The others are distracted by the arrival of horsemen who they call 'Lantans' and scamper away. The leader tries to escape but is lassoed by an electric rope thrown by one of the newcomers. They are tall and wear sparkling uniforms made of plastic.

The leader of this group asks who the Doctor is. When he says that he is a doctor who travels in time and space he is dismissed as being deranged and told that only the ancestors could travel through the stars. The Doctor and Sarah are tied up with rope and dragged through the trees behind horses. They arrive in a valley containing a huge metal building beside a river. Delta winged aircraft are landing nearby. They are led into the complex where Lantans stroll leisurely, admiring statues. Inside the building they are led through corridors on luminous plastic carpets until they are taken to meet three men in a room.

These men are amused that a human can be so articulate and well dressed but they laugh at the idea that the Doctor is from the future. The Lantans say that they have travelled for millennia through space and have been on Earth for three generations. Man is stupid and ignorant, only able to mimic the Lantan speech. The Doctor tells them that man has a future but the Lantans do not. They decide to send him to the capital but, just then, there is a powerful earth tremor.

The Doctor and Sarah are locked away for three days. When they are finally taken back to the interrogation room, the TARDIS is there. The Doctor tells them that it is his time machine and to demonstrate he offers to show the Lantans the future. Two of them say they will accompany the Doctor but Sarah must stay behind. At that moment a messenger arrives to say that the capital has been destroyed by a tidal wave. The Lantans run out of the TARDIS as the building is hit by another earth tremor. Sarah dashes in and the Doctor dematerialises his ship.

Sarah asks what happened to the Lantans and the Doctor suggests that some of them may still be alive in Sarah's time. She says that the leader reminded her of the Doctor and asks where he was born, and when.

Scorched Earth

3rd Doctor and Sarah Jane

The TARDIs lands on the Earth-like planet Varium III. They step out onto farmland. It reminds Sarah of eighteenth century England. No sooner has the Doctor noticed that the vegetation has been scorched than a bowman fires an arrow at them. They realise that they are surrounded by armed men and surrender. One of their captors says that they will be taken to Marshal Zona and they are led to the farmhouse.

Zona is seated in the kitchen. He accuses them of sending down the streaks of fire that have destroyed the crops. The Doctor denies this and offers to help. Zona decides that they don't look hostile and agrees. However, he adds that failure to provide an answer by nightfall will result in their deaths.

The Doctor and Sarah spend the rest of the day in the fields. He has noticed that the planet has a weak sun and a stable climate. He suggests that a rare and violent storm has woken up a virus that has wiped out the vegetation. He tries a variety of chemicals to kill the virus without success. Sarah grows increasingly worried. When they are given bread and cheese as a refreshment she comments that she wishes it was fish and chips with salt and vinegar. The Doctor leaps to his feet and rushes into the TARDIS to fetch some sodium chloride. This proves to be the solution.

When night comes they tell Zona that he needs to cover his fields with salt and that will solve all of his problems. The Marshal is unimpressed: they do not have enough salt. The Doctor has a plan: he builds pumps to pump seawater from the nearby ocean onto the land. While he is about it he teaches the people how to fish so that they have food while their land recovers. The grateful people wave them off while the Doctor tells Sarah that there will not be another great storm for thirty thousand years.